


Like Finding Water at the Bottom of the Ocean

by roseclaw



Category: High School Musical
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 12:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseclaw/pseuds/roseclaw





	Like Finding Water at the Bottom of the Ocean

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[chad danforth](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/chad+danforth), [cliche](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/cliche), [fic](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [het](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/het), [hsm](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/hsm), [rating: pg-13](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/rating:+pg-13), [ryan evans](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/ryan+evans), [slash](http://autonomyanatomy.livejournal.com/tag/slash)  
  
---|---  
  
_**HSM: Like Finding Water at the Bottom of the Ocean**_  
**Fandom**: HSM  
**Pairing**: Chad/Ryan, Troy/Gabriella  
**Rating**: PG-13-ish maybe R  
**Word Count**: 1,850  
**Spoilers**: Nothing.  
**Warnings**: This is an apoca-fic. Seriously.   
**Author's Note**: Quick beta by [](http://saekokato.livejournal.com/profile)[**saekokato**](http://saekokato.livejournal.com/). Who wanted to know how the world ended and why Canada. The answer is in a quick note at the end of the fic. I wanted to write an apoca-fic, and I chose HSM because it is the only one of my fandoms that the apocalypse could not ever be remotely close to canon.   
**Disclaimer**: HSM is that of Ortega and Disney.   
**Disclaimer 2**: I do not condone the use of any conjugation of the verb "to get" in place of any conjugation of the verb "to be."  
**Summary**: The world ends on a Tuesday.

 

Like Finding Water at the Bottom of the Ocean

 

The world ends on a Tuesday. There's disease and pestilence and a plague of goddamned locusts. The birds drop from the sky, and Chad stands under the elm tree in what used to be his front yard. His house is gone; his parents are gone; his sister is gone; his neighborhood is gone; his life is _gone_.

He can smell burnt garbage and ozone and a sickly smell that he doesn't want to identify but at the same time knows that it's the smell of burning flesh. He cups a hand over his nose in a pathetic attempt to block out the stench of his family. This is not how he plans to remember them. His eyes sting with smoke and memories, and Chad momentarily lives in the past.

He doesn't know how long he stands there, mourning the could-have-beens. He knows that the sun is cowardly slinking behind the horizon, and he doesn't know what will come out looking for fresh flesh when it does. He knows that he needs to find someplace safe, but he's unsure as to what is safe anymore. The world isn't what it was a day ago, and Chad just doesn't know.

He hears the metal clanking and whirring of a beat-up pick-up truck and sees pinpricks of light. The truck is on a course for him. It must be, because Chad is the only living thing within miles. He hides like the sun �" behind the elm tree, because it's the only thing still standing.

The truck belongs to Troy. Chad realizes this when he hears Troy's low voice franticly babbling at the shadow in the passenger's seat. Chad hears Gabriella's reassuring murmurs, and this is familiar: this connects today with yesterday. He steps out from behind his tree and into the garish light cast by the headlights with a hand shading his eyes. He doesn't think that it could be a mistake: that doesn't even occur to him. He wants to hang on to the familiar.

It's not a mistake, however. Both Troy and Gabriella nearly take the truck doors off their hinges in their haste to embrace Chad. Chad lets their presence wash over him in thick waves of nostalgia and something that may have been a brief crash of hope. He can smell Gabriella's fruity shampoo as she whispers tearfully in one ear as Troy does the same in the other. Chad doesn't process what they're saying.

He lets the two of them lead him to the truck. Troy drives, Chad stares out the passenger side window, and Gabriella sits between them quietly swallowing thick sobs that if Chad thinks about he knows he'll do the same, so he doesn't think. He stares out the window and watches for something familiar and finds nothing but postmodern ruins of a capitalistic society. That society means nothing now that there is nothing. Chad doesn't ask where they're going. He supposes it doesn't matter anyway. As long as it's away.

They head east, away from the sun, maybe to head it off when it returns in the morning. The roads are just as broken as everything else. There are large chunks of asphalt missing or cracked. Troy's truck has a difficult time navigating through the wreckage in the dark.

Chad doesn't ask if Troy or Gabriella had found anyone else. He knows that if they had found any other survivors, they would be in the truck too. He doesn't ask how they managed to survive, because Chad isn't even sure how he managed to survive. He absently rubs a gash on his forearm wondering if there is such a thing as antibacterial ointment anymore.

There is a person in the middle of the road. This makes Gabriella nervous and sets Chad's teeth on edge. Troy is hopeful, and Chad reminds him that everyone they know is dead. Gabriella half stifles a wail.

The person turns to gaze into the headlights of the truck, and Chad immediately recognizes Ryan. Chad is out of the truck with his arms around Ryan before Troy has a chance to put it in park. He is closely followed by Gabriella.

Ryan doesn't say a word as Chad and Gabriella usher him into the cab of the truck as they go sit in the bed. Chad doesn't feel the least bit awkward when Gabriella crawls next to him and wraps her arms around his waist and buries her face into his shoulder. He is grieving too. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her closer.

Chad jerks awake as the truck jerks to a stop. The sun is leisurely nudging its way above the jagged skyline. Gabriella stirs in his arms, and now Chad finds their position awkward. His back and ass are sore from the unforgiving metal of the truck bed, and his arm is asleep where Gabriella is leaning into him.

He cranes his neck to take in their surroundings. They are in the mountains, no longer heading east. They're pointed north, with the sun to their right, and Chad is dehydrated and possibly in need of some food. His stomach is cramping, and Chad isn't sure that it's only in hunger.

Troy is outside the truck, and Chad joins him, so does Gabriella soon after. Ryan is asleep in the cab with his head against the window, blond hair creating swirls of oil and dirt against the glass. Chad is unsettled by the absence of Ryan's hat.

They have stopped in front of a railroad crossing with the train standing dead on the tracks. Troy suggests that they salvage what they can from the dinning car. Chad likes that idea, and he searches for the dinning car after emptying his bladder behind a tree.

Gabriella is the one who finds the food, shouting herself hoarse until she is joined by the three boys who think that she's dying. They find her merrily stuffing her face with carrot cake and with a smudge of white, cream cheese frosting on her nose. Troy laughs and kisses the frosting from her nose, and she giggles. Chad finds a carton of orange juice, and it burns his throat on the way down. Troy finds a package of coffee beans and rummages around to find filters for the coffee machine. Ryan sits on the dirty floor and watches them.

They eat and drink their fill of protein, sugar, and caffeine. Gabriella encourages Ryan to eat some packaged crackers. Chad finds a crate so they can carry the excess food out to the truck. He and Troy load it up with goods while Gabriella rubs small circles on Ryan's back as tears leak from the corners of his eyes, and he whispers lowly about how everything is gone, how his sister's unexpected selflessness saved him, how she died slowly and that should have been him. It all comes spilling out of his mouth no louder than a whisper: the guilt, the sorrow, the self-depreciation.

Troy and Chad stop scavenging and touch some part of Ryan's body reassuringly. Troy's hand is on Ryan's shoulder, and Chad's hand is on Ryan's knee, rubbing small, slow circles on the inside of Ryan's knee with his thumb. Ryan's quiet tears turn into quiet hiccups, and Gabriella convinces him to take slow sips of water, holding the flimsy plastic cup up to his lips. The plastic buckles slightly under her fingers. Chad watches Ryan's throat working around the water. If Gabriella worries about Ryan, focuses all of her attention into making him feel better about being a survivor, then Chad will not have to be on the receiving end of those worries. Ryan is more breakable than he is.

Troy and Chad finish loading all the food they can find, even the little creamers and sugar packets, onto the truck.

Gabriella drives with Troy as her passenger. Ryan and Chad are in the bed with the crates of food. Ryan is in bad shape. Chad assumes that it's shock. He's in shock too. Two days ago Chad had a family, a girlfriend, a life. Now Chad has these three people. He's always had these three people, but now he needs them. Ryan curls up next to Chad and clings. Ryan's fingers dig almost painfully into Chad's side. That pain grounds Chad. Ryan needs all of them now, and that is what Chad clings to so he doesn't go into shock. Ryan is pale and smells of dust and sweat and sun.

They stop a while down the road. Chad doesn't have a watch, but the sun is overhead, and they might be somewhere in Colorado. Ryan still clings to Chad, and Chad is glad that Troy's truck bed has a cap to keep away the worst of the sun, but it traps the heat. Chad sweats heavily, and the majority of it is soaked up by his t-shirt that Ryan is desperately clutching.

Troy opens the back of the truck, and Chad coaxes Ryan outside. They are under a stand of spruce trees, and it's cool. They bathe naked in a freezing spring, because there is no where else to go. The juxtaposition of the boiling air and the frigid water takes Chad's mind off of everything. He likes not thinking about everything �" not while the gash on his arm is still fresh, not while his other mental wounds are gaping and festering. He and Gabriella end up bathing Ryan, and Chad tries not to stare at Gabriella's bare, tanned breasts. He focuses on Ryan's wan skin instead.

Later that day, the truck runs out of gas. The gas can in the truck bed buys them enough time to find a standing gas station somewhere around Colorado Springs. They stock up on as much gas as they can carry, stealing two more gas cans for the truck bed. Chad also grabs every single Snickers Bar and York Peppermint Patty the gas station has to offer. Troy nabs the healthier foodstuffs, and Ryan picks up all the bottled waters, Gatorades and Power Aides. Gabriella pumps the gas pumps dry and siphons the rest out of a few abandoned cars.

By the time they make it to Canada, Ryan's no longer in shock. He speaks sometimes, but for the most part he clings to Chad. Chad clings to Ryan's scent. He is frightened by this. He doesn't look at Gabriella's breasts with as much interest as he does the pale expanse of Ryan's skin from his ear to his shirt collar. Chad should be worried about what that means, but he's holding on to what he has so he doesn't think about what he doesn't have.

They sleep in the bed of the truck and keep moving. Chad doesn't know if they're running from something or running to something. Mostly, they're just running. Chad is unsure as to when they'll stop. In the week they've been running they have not seen another person outside of their group. Chad finds it peaceful and intimate.

It's just the four of them against the world, and Chad is okay with that.

\- * -

End.

**End Note**: Okay. What happened and why Canada? said, "I'm still wondering what the fuck happened. Zombies? Aliens? Weirdo virus? Nuclear war? Cher releasing a track that has embedded messages that drove people insane and caused them to attack and kill all those around them? Also, why the fuck Canada? Did hell only break loose in the USA? *confused face*"

So, the answer is all that it wasn't Cher but Celine Dion who release a track with embedded messages that drove people to nuclear war and the release of an alien weirdo virus that turned people into zombies. And the four are going to Canada to kill Celine Dion if she hasn't been killed already. Apologies to those who like Celine Dion. The idea came from South Park. *looks innocent*

...What really happened? In my mind I combined all sorts of post-apocalyptic films and tv shows: Jericho, Supernatural, Resident Evil, etc. and all sorts of apocalyptic stories I've read about alien invasion and the sort. Yay! The point is Chad doesn't know, so you don't either.


End file.
